Victor Davidoff, a columnist at the independent Russian magazine New Times, told me by email that the relatively low level support for the war among young people accounts for the Kremlin’s reluctance to declare a general mobilization (which, if successful, would likely ensure Russia’s victory). It is also noteworthy that few Russians have been volunteering to fight in Ukraine, despite various inducements.

As for the decline of protests, it is almost certainly due less to indifference (let alone growing pro-war sentiment) than to fear. Under laws enacted in early March, “discrediting the Russian armed forces” or spreading “false information” about Russia’s military action in Ukraine is punishable by up to 15 years in prison; dozens of prosecutions under these statutes are currently underway. On July 8, a Moscow court handed down the first draconian sentence in such a case. The victim was Aleksei Gorinov, a member of the municipal council of Moscow’s Krasnoselsky district who had spoken out against the war at a March 15 council session. Gorinov and fellow council member Elena Kotenochkina not only had the temerity to refer to the “special operation” in Ukraine as a war but accused the Russian government of trying to occupy Ukraine and of killing Ukrainian children—and compared it to fascist regimes. Gorinov, who remained unbowed and managed to bring a handwritten placard with the words “Do you still need this war?” into the courtroom, was sentenced to seven years in a penal colony. (Kotenochkina, charged in absentia, had left the country.)…

Still others have experienced police harassment on mere suspicion of anti-war activity. The independent human rights media project OVD-Info has reported on the case of Maria, a Novosibirsk woman suspected—falsely, she says—of making “Peace to the world” posts on the internet and attending protest rallies. Maria says she was bombarded with phone calls from the local police precinct and was finally taken in for questioning; her husband and her mother were also harangued about her supposed offenses.